Water fights, elephant rides make Thailand adventure unforgettable

The trek to Mae Sariang involved a four-hour ride affixed atop elephants followed by a sleepover at a local village.Jeff Groberman
/ For Postmedia News

Spending a night tenting in one of Thailand’s National Parks was possible after rafting down the Ngao River for several hours.Jeff Groberman
/ For Postmedia News

A trip to take in Thailand’s hidden gems fulfils lifelong goal for writer.Jeff Groberman
/ For Postmedia News

Recently, I visited Northern Thailand and by some quirk of fate my trip coincided with the Thai New Year.

Thailand is predominantly a Buddhist country - something you notice immediately upon your arrival. It's not so much all the Buddhas or the saffron robed monks, but the traffic: No horns honking - at all! The national slogan could be, "Chill out. Everything's cool, man."

The Thais bottle up all their hostility until new year's, then unleash it with a national water fight.

It is a tradition, that for three days a year, during new year's, they douse each other with water - and I don't mean just a sprinkle. You'll be met with smiling Thais brandishing pails of water, buckets of water, super soaker water guns, garden hoses - day and night for three days.

It's sort of fun the first 200 or so times; then it gets tiring. My suggestion is if you happen to be in Thailand during this event, wear a bathing suit, carry your camera, phone and wallet in a plastic bag - maybe even climb in the bag yourself!

"Why don't these people just get drunk, throw up and pass out in the street like normal people,?" complained one of my fellow tour members.

"I'd like to see them try that in Detroit," commented another after getting hit in the face with a super soaker squirt gun.

The funny thing is that at the stroke of midnight on the third day, it all stopped - instantly.

The Thais returned to the quiet, laid-back people they are for the remaining 362 days of the year.

Some of the adventures I encountered on this trip were rafting down a river on a dissolving raft, listening to the trainer at Tiger Land when he told me it was OK to pull the tiger's tail, braving the man-nibbling fish in waterfall pools and endeavouring to solve the mystery of the Asian toilet.

But my most memorable adventure was the opportunity to experience life with local inhabitants in a small Thai village not far from Chiang Mai.

This involved sleeping in a local family's home - sort of a grown-up version of a kids' sleepover except you can't phone mom or dad to come and pick you up at two in the morning.

Upon arriving at the village we were ushered into the family home to see our sleeping accommodation.

It turned out that all 13 of us would be staying in this particular home, which doubled as the village recreational hall.

They had erected a series of what can best be described as tourist cages.

These were a series of six by six by four foot rectangular mosquito tents that slept two.

They came in two colours: Blue and pink. I take it the guys were to sleep in the blue ones - the girls in pink.

The enclosures hung in a row like a series of cages at a zoo - convenient for the local inhabitants to stroll down and gawk at the tourists. I looked to see if there were signs in Thai warning them not to feed us or stick their hands into our cages.

The afternoon entertainment was an elephant jungle drive.

I'm not sure if the entertainment was for us or the elephants. Two of us were strapped to the back of an elephant while the driver perched on his head like a hood ornament - supposedly to direct the breast.

I mentioned I felt like a sack of rice in the uncomfortable two-person "chair." I was informed that was because the "chair" was in fact constructed to carry sacks of rice; not people.

The "jungle" turned out to be a grazing area where the elephants wandered about, ripping up and eating various bits of foliage until they were full or bored.

They then wandered back to the village with us still clinging to their backs.

I made a note to suggest there might be an opportunity to make money back home by strapping tourists to the backs of cows and letting them wander in the meadow for a while.

After dinner it was time to retire to our cages. I was lucky enough to have two of the loudest snorers on either side of me.

Fortunately, at full volume my iPod almost drowned them out. This worked well until about 3:45 a.m., when the battery died. At 4 a.m. the chanting began from the monastery on the hill across the way.

It usually starts at 5 a.m., but as it was Thai New Years we were entertained for an extra hour.

Actually, it wasn't live chanting: The first monk up put on a scratchy recording of chanting complete with drumming and bells accompanied with loud bursts of ear-splitting feedback. This woke up every rooster in the vicinity who then joined in the cacophony until the feedback settled down.

They then went back to sleep until the next burst of feedback. The rooster racket woke the dogs who joined in as well.

At 5 a.m., the main event of live chanting commenced.

At 7 a.m., I looked through the mosquito netting and detected flames leaping high at the far end of the building.

I debated whether to scream Fire or maybe just get up, visit the washroom and observe what developed. I'd been burned before shouting false alarms of fire, earthquake and tsunami. Good thing I waited - it was only one of the villagers pouring gasoline on the cooking fire.

At 8 a.m. we were served an authentic Thai breakfast comprising of toast and hard-boiled eggs.

"What are those things?" asked Justin, one of my fellow travellers from California.

"You don't get out much, do you?" I replied. "They're called eggs. If you step outside I can show you where they come from, but you might not want to eat one after that."

As we packed our stuff into the vans for our next adventure I managed to talk to one of the villagers through an interpreter.

"I can't believe you people actually pay us to sleep on our floor in cages and eat toast and eggs!" he exclaimed.

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